iBeacon are part of iOS 7, think RFID like devices.

…iBeacons is to help you find things — or, rather, to help your iOS device to find itself. iBeacons is the general name for a set of additions to the CoreLocation framework that developers can use when designing apps: it isn’t a new piece of hardware, nor a new app, but a capability. Apps can use iBeacons to answer the question “Where am I?” not in terms of a location on a map, like GPS does, but in terms of where the device is relative to another device. Specifically, where it is relative - Source: Tidbits.com

 iBeacons seem nebulous until you read the following…

One company that is hard at work making their own brand of iBeacon sensor is estimote. From their web site:

Simply stick our tiny sensors in any physical place — such as your retail store — and your app users will benefit from personalized micro-location based notifications and actions when they walk in to your venue or interact with your products. - loopinsight.com

“Apple iOS 7 surprises as first with new multipath TCP connections”

Network World - Apple’s iOS 7 is the first large-scale use of a newly-minted Internet protocol, called multipath TCP. It lets computers send and receive data across different network paths and interfaces at the same time, such as Ethernet, Wi-Fi and 3G  

Source: Network World

Before you ask why you’d even need that:

Researchers have been working for years on creating “disruption tolerant” networks, which can automatically work around failures, sometimes multiple failures, and adapt to changing network conditions

Source: Network World

Its worth reading the whole article, multipath TCP should be transparent to the end user and boon to developers and user experience without having to lift a finger.

Quartz is even more pumped about it than NetworkWorld with an article titled Apple’s iOS 7 includes a surprise: a ticket to the next generation of the internet.

iOS 7 audio problems: musicians advised not to upgrade yet “iOS 7 audio is not ready,” says Audiobus developer

Thanks to the long-awaited arrival of Inter App Audio, many of us had been hoping for better integration between music making apps in iOS 7, but with the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system now rolling out, the focus has switched to problems that it’s having with audio performance.

Source: MusicRadar.com

While not good, this could be more serious if its not addressed before the release of iOS 7 for the iPad. The iPhone doesn’t support USB Dock adapter with CoreMidi, which means that the iPhone and iPod Touch require special interfaces.

Pair-Lock Your iOS 7 Device with Apple’s Configurator

As it turns out, the same mechanism that provides your iOS 7 device with a potential back door can also be used to help secure your device should it ever fall into the wrong hands. This article is a brief how-to on using Apple’s Configurator utility to lock your device down so that no other devices can pair with it, even if you leave your device unlocked, or are coerced into unlocking it yourself with a passcode or a fingerprint. By pair-locking your device, you’re effectively disabling every logical forensics tool on the market by preventing it from talking to your iOS device, at least without first being able to undo this lock with pairing records from your desktop machine. This is a great technique for protecting your device from nosy coworkers, or cops in some states that have started grabbing your call history at traffic stops. 

Source: zdziarski.com

Bluetooh, Bluetooth and bluetooth

iOS 7 has a lot more expansive Bluetooth support, both Mavericks and iOS are getting a healthy dose of bluetooth support.

In a post at the official Bluetooth blog, chief marketing officer Suke Jawanda outlines some of these changes. First, he confirms that Bluetooth Smart is a big part of AirDrop, an iOS 7 feature that lets nearby users quickly exchange photos and documents. With the new operating systems, Bluetooth hardware will also gain access to Apple Notification Center Services (ANCS), making the task of pushing notifications to smartwatches and other wearables far more seamless for developers. Rather than having to come up with clever workarounds — as Pebble had to do with iOS 6 — the expanded support ideally means users shouldn’t have to worry about fussing with settings to get things functioning properly. 

Source: TheVerge.com

Apple showed off its very strong developer commitment by adding more to the core Bluetooth APIs. It was amazing to see the native support of more GATT profiles (including HID and ANS), the growing ecosystem of devices and verticals Apple is looking at, and the sheer market potential Apple sees in the Bluetooth appcessory space.

One of the coolest things I saw was the addition of Bluetooth support to the Application State Preservation and Restoration APIs. Let’s say you have a device utilizing an app on your phone or tablet. The user interacts with the app to control the device, but then moves to another task. Soon, there are several apps open, the system looks to reclaim some resources, and unloads your app from memory. By implementing the State Preservation and Restoration APIs for Bluetooth, iOS7 will automatically remember the state the app was in when the system shut the app down. iOS7 then allows that state to be loaded back into memory (along with the app) when your device needs the app again. To me, this is the epitome of intelligent management. It allows developers to create seamless experiences for consumer interaction with appcessories without worrying about the state management plumbing code.

Source: Bluetooth.com

I can’t say I’m as versed with bluetooth tech as I should be (GATT profiles are new to me) but the biggest rumor is iOS 7 mouse support.

We’ve gotten a few questions from users through our web tickets about how to do this on Safari and Chrome on Mac so I’m adding those directions here for anyone else who comes across this post. 

To revert the settings in Chrome on Mac: 

1. Click the ‘hot dog’ button (formerly the wrench icon) and go to “Settings”
2. In Settings, go to the “On Startup” section; select “Open a specific page or set of pages”. Click on “Set Pages” and select an alternate or add a new page that you prefer to use instead of the Conduit option.
3. In Settings, go to the “Appearance” section; check the box for “Show Home Button”. Click the “Change” link, select “Open This Page” and write in the page you want to use as your home page.
4. In Settings, go to the “Search” section. Click “Manage Search engines…” Add or select a new default search engine, then remove the Conduit option.
5. In your search box go to chrome://extensions and remove the Conduit Search tool and DivX Browser Bar tool.
6. Close and reopen the browser to see the changes take effect.

To revert the settings in Safari: 

1. Go to Safari and select “Preferences”
2. Under the General section go to “Home Page”
3. Change the home page from the Conduit search option to something else (e.g.www.google.com)

In Firefox on Mac, you can change your Home Page by following these steps: 

1. In the “Firefox” menu, select “Preferences”
2. Under the General section, find the Home Page area.
3. Remove the current Home Page option and write in a new one, for example “http://www.google.com”
4. Close and Reopen the browser to see the changes take effect.

To change the New Tab page in Firefox on Mac: 

1. Open a new tab
2. Click the “Restore” button in the bottom left corner of the page.
3. Close and Reopen the browser to see the changes take effect.

To change the search engine for the search bar: 

1. Click on the menu next to the magnifying glass icon in the upper-right corner of the browser window.
2. Select “Manage Search Engines”
3. Select a new search engine as your default, for example Google.
4. Remove the DivX Browser Bar/Conduit option from the list

To change the 404 error page: 

1. Go to the Firefox folder: open Finder and navigate to Applications and right click on firefox.app
2. Select MacOS, and delete the MACSearchTakeOver.js file
3. Go to the folder Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/CHOOSEActiveProfile. Note, USERNAME = your username. CHOOSEActiveProfile will be a unique name, for example “6y5m281v.default”
4. Delete the file called abstraction.js

Source: forums.divx.com/divx/topics/bing_search_page_appears_when_opening_a_new_tab_window_on_firefox_macos

Interestingly, as someone with an affinity for codecs, its been quite some time since I’ve thought about DIVX. Last night, I was updating my Flip4Mac codecs so I could use Camtasia (and checking my 3VIX codecs) but since the advent of .H264 and AAC, its hard to really think of using any other end-user codecs besides .H264 (and WebM for FireFox users).

DIVX is so irrelevant today that popular Sorenson Squeeze doesn’t even bother to output to it. It doesn’t surprise me that they’ve fallen to RealMedia’s RealPlayer shovelware tactics.

Ever heard of Native Client by Google? I didn’t either until Google’s latest announcement for Google+ photo editing tools

Tech crunch summerizes it as the following:

“This technology allows developers to execute native code in a sandbox in the browser. It can execute C and C++ code at native speeds and with the ability to, for example, render 2D and 3D graphics, run on multiple threads and access your computer’s memory directly. All of that gives it a massive speed bump over more traditional HTML5 apps (Native Client apps basically run at the same speed as they would in a desktop app, after all) and makes tools like the new Google+ photos editing features as fast as they are.

Native Client works in Chrome on Windows, Linux, Mac and Chrome OS, but other browser vendors are not supporting it. Mozilla, for example, is trying to get JavaScript to the point where it runs almost as fast as a native app (something they are getting very close to thanks to the asm.js project). Microsoft, on the other hand, is betting on hardware acceleration (and WebGL) in IE11 to make web apps run faster in its browser.

” - TechCrunch

While not entirely the same, Native Client sounds like ActiveX all over again, just with Cross Platform status. 

Seems like a round-about way to address the lack of native apps on Chrome OS.

Bootstrap is great. Its effectively now the 960 grid of 2012+. There’s no other way to really slice it, but its overkill for a lot of project and locks you into a lot of styling that you may not want or need.  There’s a lot of lightweight CSS frameworks. I’ve come increasingly to the conclusion that you should get into the habit of rolling your own.  

While I’ve seen some extreme criticism of frameworks such as “CSS frameworks, the killers of design trends”, my rationing is a little more practical and a little more selfish: I want control and I want to know the thought process of why each design decision was made. 

Here’s a quick compiled list of links for building your own CSS framework:

CSS Frameworks + CSS Reset: Design From Scratch - An intro to CSS frameworks by Smashing Magazine

Reset CSS - No need to reinvent the wheel, zero out your browser defaults.

Don’t Overthink - CSS grids - Make CSS grids smart

Defining breakpoints - A nice philosophy on defining breakpoints.

TypeChart - Easy to nab typography defaults if your project requires web safe fonts.

f an Android device (phone or tablet) has ever logged on to a particular Wi-Fi network, then Google probably knows the Wi-Fi password. Considering how many Android devices there are, it is likely that Google can access most Wi-Fi passwords worldwide. 

Recently IDC reported that 187 million Android phones were shipped in the second quarter of this year. That multiplies out to 748 million phones in 2013, a figure that does not include Android tablets. 

Many (probably most) of these Android phones and tablets are phoning home to Google, backing up Wi-Fi passwords along with other assorted settings. And, although they have never said so directly, it is obvious that Google can read the passwords. 

Sounds like a James Bond movie.  

Sounds like standard Google fair to me.  This is the same google that went rooting around for your wifi network.

Never thought I’d have warm-fuzzies for the Microsoft era.

Too many iOS apps are just rehashes of those same instagram effects, trite and tired, but there are some gems in a crowded landscape

Without any scientific methodology or reasoning and certainly no order, I present: “The 4 iOS camera apps worth paying money for”! Out of the two dozen+ iOS photography related apps I’ve bought, these are the 4 iPhone apps I keep coming back to.

SnappyCam

SnappyCam on an iPhone 5 can capture 20 FPS of 8 mp photos. Seems impossible right? Nope,  but it only took a scientific breakthrough. Outside of its annoying sound effects, its a must.

Links:

iTunes

Official Website

Kaleidomatic

Kaleidomatic tells all in the name,its a Kaleidoscope app for your iPhone that lets you use your camera to import photos or use your camera Kaleidoscope like effects. 

It sports an intuitive interface allow you to twist and drag the effects, and lets you export variants of your creations, including seamless images, perfect for repeating backgrounds.

It works wonders, see my iPhone lock screen, an interpretation of David Thorne’s seven legged spider.

Photo: Seven Legged Spider Lock Screen (Book Cover)

Links: 

iTunes

Official Site

Camera Noir

An app that only shoots black and white with 3 setting levels shouldn’t be this good… but it is. Its easy to get stunning photos.  Don’t take my word for it. Appleinsider, Uncrate, Cultofmac, iDownloadBlog, CanvasApp and DaringFIreball.

Photo: Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

Links

iTunes

Official Website

ProHDR

Yes, your iPhone has built in HDR, so why would you pay for it? ProHDR offers control, allowing you to blend two separate captures and quite simply get better results than your iOS HDR. ProHDR even predates iOS’s HDR and continued to be maintained since, I’ve been using it years.

Quite simply, you can get captures that you cannot get using any other software.

Photo: Spencer’s Butte, Oregon

The app’s auto feature works pretty damn well, it require a steady hand (and not much movement), but it’ll auto detect the lightest area and the darkest area and adjust the shutter accordingly. After two snaps, you’re presented with the ability to adjust the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Warmth and Tint. The photo above illustrates how even extreme light differences, the ProHDR app performs admirably. 

Links

iTunes

Official Website

Honorable Mentions (You should buy these too)

Camera+ - The most capable of the iOS Photo App replacers, includes Touch Exposure & Focus, “Always On” flash, Digital Zoom, iCloud Support and of course, Instagram like effects. There’s 100s of apps competing but Camera+ is probably the best of ‘em.

Mextures - Lets you combine effects in chained layers. If Filters are what you’re after, look no further. Its probably the most flexible filter app on the market. More than worth buying.

OJ is a JavaScript library with the goal to make objects that create and live edit the web. So thisBulletList object creates itself and then lets you manipulate it:

OJ JS abstracts websites into objects that are controlled via JS. Its interesting, but at 11,000 lines of JS there’s a question of added complexity and reduced performance for uncertain benefit. That said, it gifts true MVC.

Pictured: Mac Pro 2013

Today marks the end of Apple’s last user upgradable machine. Most users will probably see the Mac Pro as an overpriced curiosity but its nail in the coffin for user-modifiable computers. My Mac Pro from 2008 has had several upgrades over the years and is still standing strong, and still a very capable computer.

But that’s the point, 5 years later, my Mac Pro marches on. Apple has been on a slow war against the power user, slowly taking the user out of the pilot seat (tethering them from venturing too far from the mothership).

It started with the MacBook Air, which had soldiered on RAM. Then it migrated to the iMacs, which required a hack to prevent the fans from revving up if the user swapped out the hard drive. Apple then decided that it was time for the MacBooks to no longer have easily replaceable batteries. The final step was the MacBook Pro 15 inch Retina, which famously received a 1 out of 10 from iFixit for its complete lack of interchangeable parts. Apple pushed this same design to the 13 inch MacBook Pro a year later.

Only the red-headed stepchild remained in Apple’s lineup, the oft-forgotten Mac Pro, which received as much attention as such. Through sparse upgrades, it remained the only user upgradable computer, a throwback to an era of computing when users actually opened up their computers from time to time for maintenance.

Today is the day that ends. A Mac Pro purchased in late 2013 will not have the promise of transforming into a better computer in 2018 as my 2008 Mac Pro did. Instead, the separation between a Mac Pro and a Mac Mini or an iMac is that much smaller. Will the Mac Pro 2013 be nearly as viable 5 years later? Thunderbolt 2 is impressive, 20 Gbps (5 GBps) is a far cry from PCIe's theoretical bi-directional 128 Gbps (16 GBps) per 16x slot.

Planned obsolescence has been part of computing since the beginning, but now its embrace feels suffocating for Mac users.

We’ve seen far too many boilerplates for HTML and CSS but very few for Javscript and/or JQuery.

So, you’ve tried your hand at writing jQuery plugins and you’re comfortable putting together something that probably works. Awesome! Thing is, you think there might be better ways you could be writing them - you’ve seen them done a number of different ways in the wild, but aren’t really sure what the differences between these patterns are or how to get started with them.

This project won’t seek to provide a perfect solution to every possible pattern, but will attempt to cover a simple template for beginners and above. By using a basic defaults object, simple constructor for assigning the element to work with and extending options with defaults and a lightweight wrapper around the constructor to avoid issues with multiple instantiations. - JQuery Boilerplate, GitHub

JQuery Boilerplate is a boilerplate not for just JQuery but everything you need to start a new GitHub Project. 

I once read (and I wish I could for the life me remember where so I could source it) that when you’re learning to code, always type out the code examples and never copy and paste them. I’m not one for anecdotal information but it stuck with me and I actually have committed to it.

Coding is like music, there’s a rhythm and logic to it. Copying and pasting is the quick way but if you’re a seasoned programmer jumping languages or just learning HTML, type out the statements rather than copy and paste. 

You might not understand it all or even most of it but over time you’ll start feeling the patterns and soon you’ll start deciphering the melodies underneath. 

So you’re on the Titanic, and you see a giant iceberg. Do you:

A) Change direction

B) Continue your course but much more carefully

C) Continue on your course as if you don’t see the iceberg

D) Load the boilers to max, charge full speed ahead, cut the life boats (for good measure), and preemptively throw Leonardo DiCaprio in the ice cold ocean. YOLO!

Nintendo might as well just hand Apple its keys. Its clearly too drunk to drive…

I rather enjoyed this, blank business cards:

In a pleasant twist, this turns out to be a far better solution than the traditional business card. You can add a call-to-action. The act of creating a card gives you a chance to have a moment with them. You can give the appropriate amount of information. If you have multiple email addresses or websites, you can choose the right one. Nobody forgets which card is yours. And if they run out of cards, you can hand them a pen and have them make you one. It’s great.

- TheStartUpToolkit

I probably wouldn’t recommend this for everyone, this has a very “Designer” or “Avant-Garde” approach. I doubt this would have the same effect for someone in the financial world (but I could be wrong). 

That said, I’m stealing this idea….

There’s been a recent development in the past few years, low profile midi controllers, the Korg Nanoseries,  Korg MicroKey series the Akia LPK25, Akia MPK, M-Audio Axiom Air Mini 32  and the most full featured, the Axiom Air 25, and not to mention the M-Audio Keystation Mini 32.

Pictured, Korg Nanokontrol2, Korg PadKontrol2 and the M-Audio Keystation Mini 32 and the Apple USB keyboard

Pictured: Korg PadKontrol2 and the Korg MicroKey 37 and the Apple USB keyboard

Features

The Keystation 32 doesn’t go for too much pizazz, its a simple, it has a single “Volume” knob, best used as a mod or pitch bend, octave buttons, sustain button and Pitch Bend Buttons. Its minimalist to say the least. 

The Korg Keystation to anyone who’s messed with midi in the past three decades is pretty familiar: Mod, pitch and octaves on the left and keys on the right. Its very reminiscent of the first stand alone controller I bought over a decade ago, a Midiman keyboard. As a bonus, its also a two port USB, which is a very nice addition. The M-Audio does get a point on having a sustain button, as the Korg doesn’t have a sustain button or ¼ inch input. 

Winner: Korg (Barely)

Physical Mod and Pitch Bends are much more useful than a volume knob. The MicroKey 37’s little brother, the MicroKey 25 has a sustain button, oddly enough. Why this was left off is beyond me.

Feel

I tested out a few of the competitors, mostly the KeyKontrol2 and the Akia LPK25 in store. The Korg KeyKontrol2 is nearly unusable, the button feel like plastic drum pads and the Akia feel like a toy.

The M-Audio KeyStation mini 32 keys being adequate sized and enough resistance to gauge velocity. Beyond that, I would not describe it as great or even good. Just acceptable.  However, for the size there’s no comparison. It’s the best you’re going to get in roughly 15 inches of width.

While, the Korg was stickered at the same price at my local guitar center, the M-Audio Keystation is a cheaper (and much smaller) keyboard, so it comes as no suprise the Korg wins. The Korg keys aren’t semi-weighted like higher end controllers (Axiom/Axiom Pro) but they offer a steady resistance that’s familiar to lower end midi controllers and synths. The keys aren’t full sized but with a much deeper range of motion, it feels less micro and more like another keyboard. It won’t win awards but its, dare I say good.

Winner: Korg

Size

The greatest liberation is not having to put away the keyboard when you’re done. Even on my large desk, space is a premium as there’s multiple monitors to share with it my ever present keyboard and mouse.

I found despite owning an 88 key hammer action keyboard, my preferred piece of hardware was my Axiom 25 for years, despite being an inferior keyboard, simply due to its size. However, its still massive compared to these two keyboards.

The Keystation 32, while wider than the Korg NanoSeries, is still small enough for a backpack. Where portability and space is concerned, the M-Audio wins hands down.  

Winner: M-Audio

Final Thoughts

Its best to go to a local dealer to see its right for you. Picky Keyboardists will find the M-Audio lacking and purists will find both woefully inadequate to the weighted hammer action keyboards on the market.

Both keyboards are plug and play. They both worked perfectly fine with both Cubase 6 and Logic X. I’m retiring the Axiom 25 and I’m going to keep the Korg.  The Microkey 37 has some baby fat that could be reduced but 3 full octaves is liberating after years of 25 keying.

The M-Audio Keystation sells routinely for $50 at sweetwater where as the Korg MicroKey is $80. The Keystation is an ideal mate for the traveling musician or iPad musician.  Its inexpensive enough to make it an addition to anyone’s midi instrument collection.

The Korg is built to be a daily workhorse. True pitch bend and modwheels are tough to beat. The worst mistake is not including some way to either connect a sustain pedal or a button. I had to run a sustain pedal to my Korg padKontrol, and assign it to Midi CC 64 for sustain pedaling.